Moving PASS

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Moving PASS

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mikefemenella SSC Enthusiast Points: 145 More actions · Answer 1

I live in Charlotte and would love to go to pass, but flying out to Seattle is prohibitive. Why not move it around year to year and expose more people to the event..kind of like the Superbowl. Let me throw my vote in the ring for Charlotte/Atlanta or DC because they're all easy drives from here. Orlando would be nice too, kids & wife can have fun while I go to Pass and the hotel is a business expense. (it's all about planning)

Chris-232075 SSCrazy Points: 2130 More actions · Answer 2

One advantage to moving the conference to different cities is that people who aren't given a travel budget to attend an out-of-town conference would have an opportunity to attend a PASS conference when it comes to or near their city.

Another advantage is variety. I, for one, would prefer to have an opportunity to visit/tour a different city every year.

For these reasons, I'd vote for moving it around.

Perhaps, PASS could also consider moving the meeting to a slightly warmer time of year. I'd take an early October meeting over the November meeting any day.

CJ Deaver SSC Veteran Points: 231 More actions · Answer 3

I can't say that there would be that much of a cost difference for attendees from the East Coast if the PASS summit was on this side of the country, unless it was in your city.

Sure, you would have to pay less for a plane ticket or you could drive, but there are still hotel costs and other travel expenses.

Not to mention that registration costs might go up to offset the logistics cost.

I say save the money and keep PASS in Seattle and keep the SQL Saturdays going all over the country.

Tom Shubick-BadArseDBA Right there with Babe Points: 733 More actions · Answer 4

I say keep it in Seattle and only one conference a year. Having two separate conferences could diminish it from having fewer vendors and fewer MVPs available due to additional scheduling conflicts where some might not be able to attend both. Plus, this allows networking from people across the country that might not be available if two seperate conferences were established.

Airfare is not a big issue. Living in Tampa, we have already looked at airfare to Seattle for the conference on Expedia and it comes out to $266 per person from Tampa to Seattle. It will cost close to that going to any other major city so from that perspective, the cost savings from an attendee standpoint will not be that much.

While it may not be necessary to have such a strong presence by Microsoft at the conference, there may be a time when it may be helpful to have access to those people and it might be a bigger selling point for the conference to boost attendance.

Finally, it may also be possible to get discounts from the venues involved if a long term contract can be signed, thereby keeping overall costs down.

JJ B SSCertifiable Points: 5100 More actions · Answer 5

Living in Oregon, USA, getting to Seattle is "sellable" to my agency. Locations in other parts of the country generally are not.

That said, I think it would be fair to alternate locations in different years. Perhaps divide the country into three or four regions and rotate from year to year. The problem for me is that there are distinct years in which my agency is "flush" (ha, ha) enough to pay for this kind of conference. If a year comes up where the agency would pay for another PASS conference attendance, but they happen to be holding the conference in Florida or Colorado that year, I'm not likely to be allowed to go.

I agree with the other posters that one big conference is way better than a bunch of smaller ones.

I have only attended one PASS conference, but it did include an interaction with an MS staff person. It was a great interaction and I learned something. (Well, more to the point, I learned that Management Studio really couldn't do what I wanted and so I didn't need to waste my time worrying about it any more. <sigh> ) I'm glad she was there because it felt like I made a personal connection to the company. While having MS staff people there is not a main selling point, it adds a bit of icing on the cake for me.

mkaiser Newbie Points: 1 More actions · Answer 6

I am new to SQL (started in Sept) and my work sent me to PASS this past year. It was totally awesome and I learned so much from all the speakers. I live in WA so Seattle is perfect for me and don't think that work would have sent me to Denver or anywhere else with the economy the way it is. I would love to keep it in Seattle. Hotels and food are close to convention. I thought is was very well done.

Thanks